is formation
is so even that all the higher rolls of the land are within ten or twenty
feet of the same height. They are, further, about one hundred feet, or a
little more, higher than the water level of the local streams. This
tableland, and particularly the ravine of the Miosson, nourishes a number
of woods. One such wood, not more than a mile long by perhaps a quarter
broad, covers Nouaille, and intervenes between that town and the
battlefield. On the other side of the Miosson there is a continuous belt
of wood five miles long, with only one gap through it, which gap is used
by the road leading from Nouaille to Roches and to the great south-western
road to Bordeaux.

In other words, the Black Prince had prepared his position just in front
of a screen of further defensible woodland.

I have mentioned one last element in the tactical situation of which I
have spoken, and which needs careful consideration.

Over and above the passage of the Miosson by a regular bridge and a proper
road at Nouaille, the water is fordable in ordinary weather at a spot
corresponding to the gap between the woods, and called "Man's Ford" or "Le
Gue d'Homme." Now, of the several accounts of the action, one, the Latin
chronicler Baker, mentions the ford, while another, the rhymed French
story of the _Chandos Herald_, speaks of Edward's having begun to retire,
and of part of his forces having already crossed the river before contact
took place. I will deal later with this version; but in connection with
the ford and whether Edward either did or intended to cross by it, it is
worthy of remark that the only suggestion of his actually having crossed
it, and of his intention to do so in any case, is to be found in the
rhymed chronicle of the _Chandos Herald_; and the question arises--what
reliance should be placed on that document?

It is evident on the face of it that the detail of the retreat was not
invented. Everyone is agreed that the rhymed chronicle of the _Chandos
Herald_ does not carry the same authority as prose contemporary work. It
is not meant to. It is a literary effort rather than a record. But there
would be no reason for inventing such a point as the beginning of a
retreat before an action--not a very glorious or dramatic proceeding--and
the mere mention of such a local feature as the ford in Baker is clear
proof that what we can put together from the two accounts is based upon an
historical event and the memory of witnesses.